And now it's finally time for Peridot to reach her full potential!

The Crystal Beacon had stopped dead in its tracks. This was not only because all of the thrusters were shut down thanks to Satellite Alpha's signature weapon, but also because the crew was far more concerned with fending off the dozens of gems swarming the halls. The only ones left out of the fight were Steven and Peridot who were lost in a mindscape and the latter was half dissolved on top of being unconscious.

From end to end, the rest of the ship was a mess of fights bleeding into and away from each other as the Crystal Gems had to contend with the invaders in the darkened corridors of their own ship. While the hallways were somewhat spacious being more than tall enough to accommodate Garnet and wide enough for three average people to walk side by side, it also meant the fights were more cramped than the many scuffles they had in the great outdoors.

For some, this greatly hampered their fighting style and forced them to get creative. Lapis found her water constructs limited by the space and having far less room to fly around, but still managed to distract many foes with hit-and-run tactics. Pearl and her clones were forced to spread out to avoid being on top of each other, but this meant they could help control the numbers. And Adamite was already at a massive disadvantage being on a floating hunk of metal, but she made up for that with brute strength and using strategy to decide when to confront an enemy and when to fall back.

Others on the team, though, were able to use this confined space to the fullest. Rutile's control over gravity meant many gems who met here were slammed into walls over and over again before being punched out by her or even someone else. Cinnabar's fireballs were not enough to scorch the insides of the ship but could set any enemy in her path alight since they had little room to dodge. Amethyst actually thrived here as she could easily run on the walls and ceiling as if the entire cylindrical space was a field for her to run over her foes and whip them into submission.

Coupling their unique skills with the better familiarity of the ship and it made up for the greater numbers the invaders had, and lack of visibility enforced by the blackout. This meant that the fight had become a war of attrition as each side tried to reclaim any inch they could of the ship and try to force the other gems into a literal corner.

The only section of the ship that was completely clear was the doorway to and immediate area in front of Steven's cabin. As one unfortunate jasper discovered, this was due to the Connie and Priyanka taking their guard duty with the utmost seriousness. Before the gem could even come close, Priyanka shot a crystal shard into her leg to stop her. The gem only had a moment to cry out in shock before Connie plunged her arm shapeshifted into a blade straight through her. The now poofed gem was thrown into the pile of stones that now sat in between them. And as soon as the threat was taken care of, they returned to their posts and readied themselves for the next Homeworld goon.

Unfortunately for the rebels, this was the only area of the ship completely under control. The rest was a mess and none more so than the engine room and the bridge. The Homeworld gems seemed determined to either capture any Crystal Gems or smash up any equipment they found. The ship did have self-repair capabilities, but those were shut off thanks to the blackout.

This meant that two gems in particular had problems fending off their opponents without causing more collateral damage to the ship. On the bridge, Topaz had to watch the swings of her maces or else risk smashing the controls. She resorted to using what she learned of hand-to-hand from Pearl in order to trap and restrain any saboteurs on her territory. This was amplified by her ability to split into her two halves which greatly increased her options.

The floor-wide engine room on the lowest level of the Beacon was an especially tumultuous battleground as Bismuth fervently defended the bones of the ship. The infiltrating gems who thought they could tamper with the engine found themselves getting pummeled and thrown into the floor hard enough to leave impressions. Not helping them was that Fluorite was barricading them in once they entered, using her naturally long body to act as a fence to wall off any looking to escape and warn the others.

While things were mostly under control, the Crystal Gems knew the element of surprise could only help them for so long especially as the portal remained open and it was only a matter of time before sheer numbers brought them down. They were not sure if Steven's unlocking act was sped up now that he intentionally triggered it, but it was a common hope since it might be what saves them from defeat.


In contrast to the ship she was laying in, Peridot was suffering from an excess of electricity as the copy of Yellow Diamond pumped her full of lightning while still shouting insults at her. All the while, Steven had tried everything from trying to throw insults back at her to trying to push her down. Not helping him was the feeling of wanting to smash his head into the nearest wall just to get the roiling anger and frustration out of his system. He could not even talk to Peridot both out of fear of screaming something vile at her and that she was still screaming in pain.

Not helping either of them was that this Yellow Diamond was far chattier and louder as she alternated between laughing her head off and throwing out jabs that almost made both of them wish the lightning would knock them unconscious already.

"Is this really the best you can do?" the monarch boasted, "Come on, fight back! Make some gadget that will defeat me! It'd be more entertaining to watch!"

"Will you shut up?!" Steven shouted, his patience long gone. Deciding he was getting nowhere otherwise, he planned to climb up to Peridot. This proved very difficult without his powers, his superhuman powers mostly gone and still fighting the urge to bury his head in the nearest patch of sand.

"Oh, look, Peridot! Another person has to save you again! You better hope he saves you before you somehow screw up being a hostage!"

As another wave of electricity went through the scientist, Steven stopped his ascent halfway shimmying up Yellow's leg. Through the pounding headache he now had, he suddenly realized he forgot something. This was not the same Yellow Diamond he fought, this was Peridot's version of her.

With this in mind, Steven let himself fall back to the ground much to the confusion of Yellow Diamond.

"What's this now? Decided she's not worth saving?"

"Nope. I don't need to save her."

"Wait, what?" asked both Peridot and Yellow Diamond, the latter actually stopping the lightning storm out of surprise.

"That's right, I don't need to rescue Peri or fight you because that Crystal Gem can save herself!"

"Hah!" the diamond barked, "Is this your attempt at a joke? This pathetic, sniveling little pebble has failed time and time again! You've seen all of her failures firsthand!"

"Oh, you want to talk failures?" Steven said with a coy grin, "Then let's talk about my mistakes! Like, I dunno, the time I got my dad kidnapped?"

A portal then opened right next to him showing him the fateful day in Korea where his hastiness and drive for answers led to Blue Diamond discovering Greg at the palanquin. This flashback caused Yellow Diamond to laugh at him instead.

"Or maybe the time I made a giant fry-costume monster that terrorized the boardwalk?"

Another portal appeared, this one showing his accidental creation of Frybo and the struggle he, Pearl and a battalion of sentient clothing had putting the abomination down. The image only caused Yellow Diamond to laugh harder, but Peridot was now more confused than anything. The half-gem, however, hardly minded showing off his cavalcade of mess-ups whether they ranged from small boo-boos he committed as a child to his less than stellar performance at time as a Crystal Gem up to his infamous decision to play Spartacus and let Aquamarine whisk him off to the trial on Homeworld.

By the end of it all, Steven was literally surrounded by his own failings all while Yellow Diamond was having a complete laughing fit complete with tears in her eyes and Peridot was just staring at him in disbelief.

"H-How?" the gem asked him.

"How what?"

"How are you so resilient?"

"Because it's like my dad taught me. If every pork chop were perfect, we wouldn't have hot dogs."

When Peridot just looked at him in confusion, Steven gave her a more fitting comparison. "Or, you know, you could try to pretend you're perfect like Yellow Diamond here."

That statement got the titanic monarch to stand up and try to attack him, but the boy just ran off and let the diamond give chase.

"You dare insult me?!" she threatened, "I'll make you regret your flippant tongue!"

As Peridot watched the completely ridiculous image of her former superior officer chase Steven around like an irate housewife trying to catch a mouse, she felt her mouth curve upwards into a smile. The chase continued even as the portals from before came back and replayed her failures, but she was soon too busy laughing to notice. And when she did look up to see them, she just walked through them to keep watching the show.

The cat-and-mouse routine continued until Steven suddenly banked hard and ran straight towards Peridot. He held out a hand and Peridot held out one on instinct which he then high-fived and yelled "Tag!"

In a millisecond, Peridot was running in place of her friend. As nerve-wracking as it was, the anxiety and sense of inadequacy faded with each minute as she tore ahead of her old commander. As Steven watched, the portals of the scientist's past started to change.

The images went from a montage of past regrets to a success story starting with Peridot completing the gem drill and how it ended up saving the world. The day she discovered her metal powers on the boardwalk. The day she stopped Jasper with a surprise attack from behind with her new powers. The time she convinced Lapis to stay on Earth and turn the tide in the battle with the rubies. The day she made three battleships self-destruct and saved the whole town with Amethyst's help. The day she tore apart a squad of gems with a bunch of cars. The first appearance of Ametrine and how she stopped Mercury in Beach City.

And there were more and more copies of these portals showing by the minute, popping into existence alongside Peridot as she ran from Yellow. Then, much to the diamond's surprise, Peridot suddenly stopped and turned to face her.

"You think you can face me?!" she shouted, her entire body sparking with lightning.

"I know I can!" Peridot boasted as the line of portals suddenly gathered around her spinning like a tornado. When Yellow Diamond tried punching through this new barrier, she found she could not make a dent in it. Punch after punch she threw bounced off it with no effect even when she put more and more energy into them.

"How?!" she demanded, "You are an insignificant worker ant! How can you match up to a born ruler like me?!"

"Like THIS!" A massive lime green fist then broke through the vortex and sent Yellow stumbling. The portals suddenly shifted to reveal Peridot now standing eye-to-eye with the matriarch and now the wall of images encircled them both of them as they started throwing titanic fists at each other.

"This! Is! Impossible!" the diamond insisted, punctuating each blow with an attack, "You're nothing! An imperfect reject! A-"

"A Crystal Gem!" Peridot rebutted, taking hold her opponent's fist and locking it in place as the portals spun faster and faster. "I may not be perfect, but I have more than you ever will!"

Yellow lashed out with her other hand, but Peridot caught that one as well and held them both firm as the portals changed course. Now all of them were melding into one massive black void behind the diamond, but she was too busy to break out of her predicament to notice.

"And what does that planet have that's so valuable?! That pathetic planet Earth?"

"Earth's not pathetic! Sure, it may be behind us technologically, but that'll change! Humans have a capacity for change beyond us!"

"You really believe that?!"

"Yep! And I also believe you're still a clod!" Peridot then suddenly released both her hands, causing the diamond to lose focus just long enough for her to tackle the monarch and send her stumbling right into the swirling black abyss behind her where she fell in with a scream before it suddenly closed behind her. The still-towering Peridot laughed in triumph only to look down at Steven smiling up at her.

"Told you that you could do it," he said before Peridot shrank back down to normal. Despite being smaller than him once again, she carried herself with immense pride as a final gleaming portal into a colorful void opened in front of them both.

"Well, I don't know about you," Peridot said, "But I'm ready to flex my brilliance once again!"

"And if it backfires?"

"Then as long as I'm alive, I'll be even smarter afterwards! Now let's go!"


Connie and Priyanka, while as vigilant as ever, were beginning to feel the repeated attacks take their told. While any physical scars their foes managed to create healed relatively quickly, they could both feel their bodies wanting for relief. They had no idea how much time passed but fending off dozens of gems without shattering any of them made for a chore.

And thus, when a blinding green light came from the room they were guarding brought them hope as they watched Peridot and Steven return to the world of the living.

"Hey!" the scientist squawked, "What's happened to all the lights?"

"Long story short, the power's completely down," Connie told her, "That station we're after has some kind of EMP-thingy that's shut off everything."

As if to punctuate the point, a light rumble rocked the whole ship as passing fighters shot the Crystal Beacon with their blasters as had happened numerous times since the blackout began.

"Hm, so no shields, self-repair systems or weapons?"

"Pretty much," Priyanka said, "We've been here looking after you two every since this started, but I'd imagine the rest of the ship is a total mess."

"I'll go try to help out," Steven said, "Peri, you're gonna fix the ship, right?"

"Oh, I'm going to do more than that," the gem smirked as she placed her hand to the wall of the cabin. Her hand began shifting from solid mass to green pixels.

(Cue Epic Theme Song: Cyber Space from Mega Man X4)

"I'm gonna take down that base!" she announced before her entire body followed her hand and changed into pixels that were absorbed into the wall.

"She's gone!" Connie yelped.

"Is she inside the walls?!" Priyanka asked.

Another tremor ended their questions as the three decided that clearing out the ship was the bigger priority. As they ran into the corridors to fight off intruders, Peridot traveled at astronomical speed as her form literally merged with the ship's intricate circuits that ran throughout its lengths. To her, she was hurtling down an electric tunnel like a rocket and laughing her head off the entire time.

"For years, I have honed and perfected technology," she said to herself, "Now I can go one step beyond and become one with it!"

It was more than just a joy ride, though, as she instinctively understood the entire ship's workings in an instant and thus quickly found the power supply that was being suppressed by Satellite Alpha as a massive red metallic wall blocked her path.

"Hm, looks like I found the problem…" she mused, "Let's see how long it takes me to crack this open!"

She placed her digitized hands to the firewall and after a brief bit of concentration, the barrier quickly changed from red to blue. Wanting proof that her power worked, Peridot exited the digital world she entered and pixelated herself out of one of the consoles on the bridge where the battle had briefly stopped as both sides wondered why the power suddenly cut back in.

Topaz and the three Off-Colors protecting the room, while shocked to see Peridot literally jump out of the bridge, wasted no time turning the tides on their flummoxed enemies and throwing them out of the room before locking the doors behind them.

"Whew," sighed Rhodonite, "At least everything's finally working again. If I had another swordfight, I think my arms would fall off."

"Please, save your praises for later," Peridot insisted through the immensely self-satisfied expression on her face, "All I did was prevent the satellite's virus from infecting the ship any longer."

"A virus?" Topaz asked, "That's what shut down the whole ship?"

"More or less, but now the Beacon is safeguarded against their weapon and now we properly launch a counteroffensive."

A fist-shaped indent appearing in the door to the bridge, however, reminded Peridot that there were still hostile gems aboard. "Can we clear out these guys first, please?!" Rutile asked.

"Do you have any idea where they're appearing from?"

"Nope," answered the captain, "All we know is there's no boarding vessel docked to us. They just started appearing somewhere inside!"

"So, they've infiltrated the ship somehow… Then it looks like I know what to look for!" Peridot thanked them before placing her hand to the wall and pixelating again. Now that she knew what she was looking for, it was easy to find the foreign device opening a portal between the ship and the Homeworld arm-carrier ship. To her, sensing the disruptions in the ship's hull was as easy as spotting a stain on a pristine kitchen floor.

Soon, Peridot appeared out of the wall right across from the portal spawning the enemy gems and found two jaspers appearing with their destabilizers in hand. The duo moved to attack her, but the techie already had a way to deal with them by forcing their devices out of their hands, switching them on out of instinct, and then jamming them both into their legs causing them to quickly poof.

With no more distractions, Peridot melded with the portal itself and soon was in complete control of it. She figured she could easily just deactivate it, but that would leave dozens of hostile gems on board with little space to fight them off. A flash of inspiration came to her, though and she quickly got to work.

All this time, Tsavorite had gone from in complete control of the situation to barking orders at everyone in sight. She triple-checked that the Anti-Luster was still in perfect working order, put every available combatant she had in line to storm the ship and scrambled all of her fighters to shoot the Crystal Beacon down. That last task was proving especially hard now that the rebel's ship had regained its full defensive and offensive capabilities meaning now she had to replace a dozen Star Skippers already.

Her day only got worse when two of the agates under her appeared on the bridge with more bad news. It took her a full ten seconds to process what they even said and respond.

"If this is a joke, I will personally have you before Blue Diamond in court!"

"It's no joke, commander! Every gem we've sent into the rebel ship has suddenly been recalled!"

"And who gave you the order to do that?"

"It wasn't a command, it's an anomaly!" the other one insisted, "The portal between our freighter and the rebel ship spontaneously malfunctioned and essentially forced every one of our soldiers back to the carrier!"

Before she could balk at this nonsense, a look outside into space forced her to do a double take. One of their own ships was firing on their own ships!

"What now?!" Tsavorite shouted before tapping into the communication frequency, "What do you think you're doing, Nephrite?!"

"I-I'm not controlling the ship!" a panicked voice replied, "Something green flew into my ship when I made a run on the enemy vessel and now I-"

"Nope, that's enough!" another voice interrupted, "I can't let you spoil my little surprise!"

"A… Peridot? Are you with the rebels?"

"The one and only Crystal Gem Peridot at your service! And I am deeply sorry about frightening you like this, but I needed some way to get the commanding officer's attention."

"And let me guess, you're going to demand I surrender and turn off the Anti-Luster so you can escape?"

A round of cackling came from the other end of the line before Peridot spoke again. "Is that you call your super-special power blocker? That thing won't ever affect our ship again thanks to me!"

"Y-You're bluffing."

"Am I? Your technician reports that I'm reading right now aren't wrong. It's working just fine, but thanks to my new power, I've essentially made our ship immune to it the same way you shield a computer from malware. You'd have to retune the frequency it uses for it to work again and that's time you don't have!"

"You've hacked into our data banks too?! How are you doing all of this?!"

"Well, if you care so much for a demonstration, let me show you!" Tsavorite expected many possible things to happen, but she most definitely did not expect Peridot to appear out of her bridge bit by bit until she was staring up at her.

"T-That's impossible!" one of the agates demanded, already pulling out her weapon.

"Oh, it's very possible! And I'm not done yet!" Peridot placed a hand on the same console she popped out of and suddenly tapped into Satellite Alpha's entire network and soon alarms were blaring throughout the building and the two agates suddenly had to run from robonoids that appeared from the walls and started attacking them.

"N-No…" Tsavorite meekly stated, "Y-You turned on…"

"All of your intruder defense systems and wiped all of your soldiers from the clearance list so now they'll be locked in their rooms and attacked by security droids? At least I left the power on…"

Tsavorite's resolve crumbled right before the rebel's eyes as she pulled out a massive serrated sword from the rhombic gem on her chest. She swung at Peridot, but the gem was already digitizing herself again and vanished into the massive electronic labyrinth that was the space station's inner workings. The commander was so frenzied she was about to start slashing at the walls, but she had other issues to worry about as robonoids started flooding the bridge and fired on what they thought was an intruder.

The chaos she unleashed on the ship left Peridot free to zoom through the conduits of Alpha without any fear of being caught and soon she came across several vital points of interest. First was the communication log which included Tsavorite's message requesting for reinforcements.

"Hm…" she mused to herself, "As much as I love peons admiring my handiwork, I think we need to change that!"

She quickly forged a new message saying that the Crystal Beacon was overrun with soldiers and the ship was quickly sucked into the gravitational field of the planet near the station where it and all of the rebels were torn apart by violent storms with no evidence of the ship remaining. With as much effort as blinking, the technopath then sent this message to every ship in range.

She then found the surveillance log as the satellite was recording its surroundings constantly and this included the battle with the Crystal Gems. Knowing that this would ruin the cover story she just circulated, Peridot altered the footage to match her story with a bit of editing magic and sent that to all ships as further evidence that the rebels were no more.

She then materialized out of the ship and into a very special room: the armory. With the insanity still going outside, the cache of weapons and equipment was completely unguarded and the doors outside were triple-locked. Peridot could not help but let out a triumphant laugh as she used her metal powers to levitate everything off the walls and then returned her and her stolen goods to cyberspace.

From there, it was child's play to locate the hangar where there were plenty of ships left for the taking. The carrier with all of the enemy troops from before had landed once their infiltration plan turned sideways and the crew quickly had to evacuate once the hangar had been flooded with robots attacking the new invaders. These robots paid Peridot no mind as she levitated her new toys through the spacious room and primed the shift for takeoff by just touching the hull.

"Hm, I feel like I'm forgetting something…" she mused right before she left. Deciding to give the folks at Alpha a taste of their own medicine, Peridot tapped into the ship's electronics one last time and set the Anti-Luster to completely short circuit in thirty seconds. With her job done, Peridot ran into her pilfered ship and commanded it to fly out of the hangar and towards the Crystal Beacon right as the entire space station went dark with no way to restore power or contact anyone.

When Peridot flew her ship in close enough, she brought herself outside with a near-instant trip through the ship's systems and brought all of her new gadgets with her as she simply floated in close to the Crystal Beacon. It was odd using her ferrokinesis to control objects in zero-gravity, but it still worked and soon she went from outside in space to back onto the Beacon's bridge where the Topaz and her crew were stunned to see her come back.

"Let me guess…" the yellow fusion said, "Steven?"

"Yep! And I brought gifts!" She then gestured to the pile of destabilizers, limb enhancers and tools the others had never seen before like a game show hostess while Rutile quickly alerted the whole ship that Peridot had returned. Once everyone was assembled, she wasted no time regaling everyone of her one-gem curb stomping of the entire facility.

"I must say, I'm amazed," Garnet said after it was all over, "This technopathy of yours will be invaluable."

"And now we've got all this free stuff!" Amethyst said, rummaging through the pile like it was a mountain of birthday presents, "So how do you use all this junk?"

"I'll be sure to give you some pointers later," Peridot said, "But I will be taking most of this. I have some ideas for a much better armor than the one from the invasion. Bismuth, would you mind assisting me there?"

"Gladly! I still can't believe you did all that just by poking their computers! Hahaha, I wish I could've seen their faces!"

"Well then, if this whole mission is done," Topaz said, "I'm going to start programming our course for Satellite Beta. Unless, Peridot wants to…?"

"Oh no, you're still captain. I'm just your genius technical advisor!"

"Oh brother," Lapis sighed, "Her ego's going to break the ship now…"

"Wait a minute," Adamite asked, "If you've claimed that our ship is destroyed, what if someone finds the carrier you used to leave the station?"

"A ship is going to explode!" Padparadscha predicted, alarming everyone except Peridot.

"It would have," she explained, "Had I not overloaded the fuel cells before I left which will just be written off as collateral damage from our battle."

"Remind me to keep my cellphone away from you," Priyanka said, "I don't need you having complete control over that."

"Perish the thought! I am a benevolent master of all technology! In fact, I already have several ideas on how I can improve life on Earth once we finish here."

As Peridot walked away, she gave out a sinister laugh that scared everyone on board as she started musing the things she could do with the internet. Even Steven was sweating slightly and hoping that she would calm down once the rush of power passed. If she did not, he feared that he had just created a monster that the human race would never be ready for.

Whew! That a lot to write, but it is done! Peridot the technopath is unleashed and considering Homeworld's reliance on technology...

Next time, though, a bit of transportation and gearing up another unlocking already! Who will it be? Tune in next time to find out!

Thank you all so much for reading! Feel free to leave questions or comments below!